Battle for the Interior Ministry

Saturday 29 January 2011: Following the Day of Rage the police advanced from the streets surrounding the Interior Ministry into Tahrir Square early in the morning, firing whatever ammunition they had left into the gathering crowds.

This was by no means an attempt to regain the square, the police numbers clearly could not have made a dent in the protestors resilience, as the numbers of the crowds marching on the street after the attack indicated. The more the authorities hit them, the more they massed.

That night I learned the true extent of the secret police operation, according to several local journalists. The morning attack on the square was to direct the same outcome as the plain clothes officers in the square that day – to urge and encourage the protestors up the street towards the Interior Ministry, where police snipers were waiting, overlooking the street.

The bodies of the dead and injured poured into a backstreet mosque that had been turned into a makeshift hospital. By the end of that day local reports said 15 people were killed and the nearest hospital to the Downtown district had recorded more than 550 injuries.